Easily man-portable enclosures have become a desirable accessory for many outdoor recreational activities, including, for instance, camping and hunting, and the widespread availability of modern lightweight materials and fabrics has resulted in the proliferation of numerous designs for such portable enclosures. Among the many popular current styles for such enclosures are “collapsible” structures incorporating a spring-like framework, typically made from spring steel. By reason of the resilient material of these frameworks, such enclosures are easily folded and packed for transportation and storage, and thereafter will tend spontaneously to their erected condition when unpacked. Such portable structures are exemplified in U.S. Pat. No. 3,675,667, issued to Miller.
It is also known to apply camouflage or background-matching patterns or colors to portable enclosures, as it is desirable, particularly to hunters, military personnel, and the like, that a tent or hunting blind be as inconspicuous as possible in its chosen environment. However, it has heretofore usually been necessary for such persons to acquire different enclosures for different geographic areas, different seasons, etc. The hunter, for example, who wishes to participate in both fall waterfowl hunting and winter small animal hunting might, of necessity, own two different camouflage enclosures, one depicting appropriate camouflage for the fall environment, and a second depicting appropriate camouflage for the winter environment. Likewise, hunters traveling to different geographic areas during the same season will desire different camouflage patters based on the local environment in which their activities will be conducted. A camouflage pattern suitable for July in Northern Michigan, for example, would be unsuited for use during the same season in, for instance, the Oregon high desert. Owning numerous enclosures each suited to a particular environment can become costly. Cost notwithstanding, all collapsible enclosures do have a certain volume and mass, such that it is inconvenient and cumbersome when one is obliged to transport several different enclosures at once.
The only exception to the foregoing problem known to the inventor hereof has been the inventor's own portable enclosure which provides a removable covering that may be selectively disposed over the enclosure to present a different color, pattern, or other indicia than that provided on the flexible covering of the enclosure itself.
What is needed then, is a single portable enclosure which is readily convertible between at least two patterns, colors, or other indicia without having to provide multiple components.